Occasionally we drop by the Kauffman Foundation’s site to see what’s the news at one of the centers of American entrepreneurialism (maybe an overstatement, but it’s very important). Their site is packed full of useful information for the entrepreneurial-minded. We were pleasantly surprised to see on their front page this article about the Foundation’s recent $10 million investment to cultivate innovation-friendly law, policy and legal scholarship. Investment in this area is crucial; the law is notoriously slow to catch up, especially so when applied to innovative industries and 2.0 companies involved in information and green technology. As the article notes, economic growth “does not just happen—it must be supported by legal institutions and policies that reward entrepreneurial risk-taking and innovation.” Indeed. Congratulations to those institutions that received grants. We’ll look forward to the results in the coming years. In particular, we’ll be keeping our eyes on Stanford’s IP Ligitation Clearinghouse project, which addresses a big need for we IP practitioners. On a related note and page within the Foundation’s site is this transcript and video interview of professor Thomas Morsch at Northwestern University’s law school. We highly recommend it. It details the lawyer’s role in advising entrepreneurs, and amusingly illustrates the mentality of lawyers and entrepreneurs in working together. Did he say we’re like oil and water? Ahem, well, maybe not all of us.
Tags: Corporate, entrepreneurs, Intellectual Property, startups
[...] we lawyers, like the upcoming Stanford IP Litigation Clearinghouse, which we covered in this recent post. Let’s hope these resources continue to grow — and, of course, let us know if you [...]